He Killed Them All Page 24

  In August 2013, Robert stalked Douglas’s Manhattan town house. He was caught by a surveillance camera peering in the window, as was his usual play. Douglas had warned his brother (through attorneys) to stay away from his family. When Robert was spotted twice at the West Forty-Third Street residence of his nephew Alexander, Douglas’s son, you can only imagine how spooked Douglas must have been.

  So he had Robert arrested for trespassing, and he was released on $5,000 bail.

  Charles Bagli reported in the Times that, coincidentally, the L.A. bureau of the FBI was looking at Durst for Susan Berman. The trespassing arrest came at a particularly sensitive moment, but he wound up skating on this charge, too. In December 2014, Robert was found not guilty of trespassing. His lawyer, my old friend Steve Rabinowitz, whom I met in the Queen for a Day talk with Debrah Lee Charatan back in 2001, argued that the Durst family security guards didn’t properly inform Robert to stay away.

  In July 2014, Robert was arrested in Houston, his old stomping and dismembering grounds, for unsheathing himself and urinating on a candy display and a cash register at a local CVS. He claimed in court that he had a medical condition. Or maybe he just really hates gummy bears? He paid a fine of $500 and replaced $150 worth of candy.

  I, for one, was asking people in my office at Fox News, “What on earth is Durst going to get arrested for next?”

  In only a few months, I’d have my answer—and it would be a doozy.

  THIRTEEN |

  | OKAY, NOW LET’S ALL WATCH THE JINX TOGETHER

  I heard from Jarecki again in 2011, when I was in Chicago doing my syndicated courtroom show for Warner Bros. He reached me by phone and asked me to participate in The Jinx, a documentary he was making about the case.

  He had some set.

  I said, “Why would I participate? You didn’t play me so well in the Ryan Gosling movie.”

  But I liked Andrew and I agreed to meet him for lunch or breakfast. He always came off as sincere, low-key, no big deal, an “I’m not going to harm anybody” kind of guy. He told me how the documentary project came about, that Durst himself volunteered to be interviewed after seeing All Good Things. Why would Jarecki devote more time, money, and effort to make another movie about the case? He’d been on it for five years already. If he hadn’t lost interest or gotten frustrated by now, he might be a lifer, like Cody and me. We would never stop looking at Durst until justice was served.

  But I said no. I was busy and I still didn’t see what good it would do for the case or for me personally.

  Andrew wore down my reluctance over a two-year period. Lots of email exchanges and lunches. He seemed to be passionate about the subject matter, with decent intentions.

  When he came to my office one Saturday, we caught up, and, again, he made his pitch. “The documentary will be about right and wrong in the criminal-justice system,” he said. “We might be in totally different fields, but we’re focused on the same thing—justice, the truth, and settling scores.” Jarecki reminded me of his previous documentary, Capturing the Friedmans, about a family that was destroyed by false accusations of child abuse run amok. “Whether it’s Capturing the Friedmans or the Durst case, my goal is about getting to the truth,” he said.

  He seemed to be pruriently fascinated by the investigations, but I also thought he had a strong sense of right and wrong. I realized that Andrew and I were on the same side, that there might be a benefit to participating in this documentary after all.

  My “no” changed to “maybe.”

  A few months later, we were having lunch at the St. Regis in New York. Andrew said, “I want you to see something.” Jarecki took his iPad out of his cross-body-strap messenger bag and cued up a short video.

  He gave me the tablet and I pushed play. It was Chip Lewis, one of Durst’s lawyers in Galveston. Lewis said, “It was very easy for us to make her the enemy. We created this mythical creature—Jeanine Pirro. And we took liberty with how directly she was involved in the pursuit of Bob. That message played well. The jury ate that one up.”

  I couldn’t believe my eyes and ears. He actually said, in no uncertain terms, that they knowingly played fast and loose with the truth about me in court. Why would he admit it? He must really think that he’s a bulletproof superstar and that revealing their strategic deception would bring him to the next level or something. I would be ashamed if I perpetuated a fraud in a courtroom. Lewis acted proud of it.

  “Son of a bitch.”

  That was it. Jarecki knew the Lewis clip would make my blood boil.

  “Maybe” changed to “hell yes!”

  I said, “I’m in.”

  The only stipulation was that I could speak to no one about the project.

  Gagged again, but I had no problem agreeing this time. I didn’t discuss The Jinx with anyone, not even Cody, who I knew was also participating in it.

  My son, Alex, was upset that I was cooperating with the man who’d been so wrong about me in his previous effort. “After what Jarecki did to you in All Good Things? How could you ever work with him?”

  I said, “He’s evolved on it.”

  “He’s just going to make money on the case again.”

  Many people have made money on Robert Durst (none more than his legal team). He was a cottage industry. For the record, I have been asked many times over the years to write a book about my involvement in the case, and always refused. Until Episode Five, I didn’t see the point of writing a book, because Kathie’s story didn’t have a satisfying conclusion.

  I said to Alex, “This case has been a thorn in my side for more than a decade, and if this documentary sheds more light on the Kathie Durst case, I’m happy to be a part of it.”

  In advance of my taping, Andrew sent me a three-page list of questions. It was well organized and thorough, starting with my personal background (“Where did you grow up?” “What was your path to becoming the DA?”) and moving into Kathie’s missing-persons case and our investigation into it.

  He specifically asked, “New York City case versus Westchester case?” I got an inkling that Jarecki truly understood the issue. He must have seen the original files and deduced for himself that the original investigation by the NYPD had been botched.

  One question on the list made me groan: “How did all the media affect the case?” Part of me wanted to talk about how the media leaks jeopardized the case and how DeGuerin had played the media like a fiddle, but I didn’t.

  Regarding the Susan Berman murder, he had the question, “Did you think it was at all connected to Bob and Kathie?”

  Uh, yeah!

  In the section of questions about the Galveston trial, he included, “What did you think about Bob’s choice to use your investigation as part of his defense? [Pirro’s name doesn’t show up in the press until after Susan’s murder, so Bob’s story isn’t true.]”

  Wow. He figured it out. He actually read those papers. It proved to me that by adding that revelation to the show, Jarecki and Smerling were sticking with the facts and ditching the fiction this time around.

  The last question on their list was, “Were you surprised that Bob reached out to us about telling ‘his side’ of the story? Bob has much to lose. Knowing something about him, can you imagine why he might do that?”

  Why indeed?

  Robert Durst is a narcissist. He believes the world revolves around him, and he simply couldn’t resist putting his stamp on Jarecki’s interpretation of the case. He is frustratingly slippery, always one step ahead of being caught. He’s the kind of guy who loved to dance on that edge. He clearly got off on it. I believe he agreed to do The Jinx so he could feel superior, smugly smarter than Jarecki and Smerling, and that he’d get to put one over on the viewing audience. Or maybe he did want the truth to come out. On some level, it was possible that he wanted the world to know how he’d gotten away with murder. O. J. Simpson, another egomaniac, wrote a book called If I Did It, trying to get credit but take no responsibility. It was to be his last act. May
be the playacting Durst had learned in Texas convinced him he could con the world as well.

  WE TAPED MY INTERVIEW in the fall of 2013. Jarecki, Smerling, and a crew came to my house and set up in the morning. Filming took place in the library. I was asked to sit in my big burgundy leather club chair even though I was wearing a red-orange dress. Apparently, the light was good in the library. Jarecki sat across from me, conversation style. He knew every fact, every detail, every aspect of the case. He kept a three-ring binder on his lap, his bible of the case, and flipped through it as we talked. The tone was polite, professional, and efficient. There was never a glitch or tense moment throughout the day. There were no egos involved. It went very smoothly. By midafternoon, they packed up their equipment and left. Start to finish, it took six hours.

  I believe I was one of the last people interviewed on camera. Of course, Durst’s second interview was the very last one recorded. Jarecki organized his schedule just as I would have, starting on the outside, learning the facts, and slowly working his way in, peeling that onion to the core.

  The questions they’d sent and my prepared answers weren’t nearly as important to them as catching on film my raw reaction to things Durst had told them. They asked me plenty, and we discussed all the facts about the case, including the defense strategy. But I could tell they were really waiting for the right moment to show me something, or tell me new bits of information they’d unearthed.

  At the very end of the interview, Jarecki handed me a copy of the cadaver letter, which I already knew by heart. Then he handed me another paper and said, “Take a look at this.” It was the envelope addressed to Susan on Durst’s Wall Street stationery that Sareb Kaufman found in a box of his mom’s things.

  But I didn’t know that at the time.

  I asked, “Where did you get this?”

  Jarecki just shook his head and said nothing.

  I looked at the envelope.

  It took a second for me to react. I read it and said, “Beverley,” noticing the misspelling. Then I studied the envelope for a second longer, saw the handwriting similarities, and said, “Son of a bitch!”

  In my head, thoughts were exploding. “Oh, my God! Here it is. All these years. Here it is. We can prove it now. We can convict him now. He did it. Of course, he killed her, too.”

  I’m sure my thought process was very similar to Robert Durst’s experience of seeing the two Beverleys side by side, both of us quietly contemplating what we were looking at. I felt hot all over, flushed and glowing.

  Durst’s blood must have run ice cold.

  Holding the envelope was like being lost in the desert and then suddenly seeing an oasis in front of you.

  I’d thought I’d found a few oases before with the Durst case. But they were mirages. The two Beverleys were not a mirage. They were the ocean.

  When I looked up at Jarecki and Smerling, they were looking at me intensely, and then with slight grins, probably because they knew they had gotten a genuine reaction they could use in the film. I looked at these two guys and thought to myself, Oh, my God. They did it. They got him.

  And then another thought struck me. God, would I love to try that case.

  I have always believed that, ultimately, the truth comes out. I said it repeatedly in the case. The Durst truth took a lot longer than most. But seeing the letter proved that patience and determination will always win in the end. Good for Jarecki and Smerling.

  Good for everyone who fought for justice, myself included.

  I WAS INVITED TO the premiere party in New York City on January 28, 2015, to watch the first episode, or “chapter” as they called it. Cody and I walked into the Time Warner Center Theater at Columbus Circle. We were both a bit wary. I didn’t know what to expect. A few celebs were there—Barbara Walters, Diane Sawyer, Regis and Joy Philbin, Rosanna Scotto, Greg Kelly, Cindy Adams and Dan Abrams, and some others I had worked with from Court TV. It had a very newsy, legal vibe.

  I spotted Andrew. He didn’t dress too fancy for the party. He wore his jeans and zipped sweater—with a tie.

  We greeted each other with a friendly hug and kiss. I said, “Congratulations!” His premiere was years in the making. It was a huge accomplishment and I hoped he was enjoying the moment.

  He said to me, “There’s going be closure. You will be satisfied with the outcome.”

  Well, okay, then. Now I could enjoy the moment, too. Cody and I sat together with absolutely no idea what was coming.

  Some things that jumped out at me as I watched the first episode. Here—watch it with me:

  | EPISODE ONE: A BODY IN THE BAY

  • Cody looks great! Not only had he done excellent police work to catch Durst in Galveston, he basically narrated his odyssey and how he struggled through the crazy facts of the “female” Dorothy Ciner living at 2213 Avenue K. At the end of the episode, he summed up Durst’s killer instinct perfectly: “He’s not the kind of man who kills for the thrill of it. I don’t believe he takes any particular pleasure from killing. But if you back him into a corner and threaten his freedom, he’ll kill you.”

  • Dick DeGuerin looks horrible. Fat, gray, with an unflattering popinjay lavender plaid shirt. He said, “You try to make judgments about whether you’re getting the truth. I believed Bob. I believed him from the very beginning.” Yes, he believed that Bob was a murderer from the very beginning, but since he could pay a defense fee in the millions, Dick would work with that.

  • Oh, my God, the Debrah Lee Charatan deposition video! I was riveted. Instantly, I flashed back to our conversation on her office fire escape and remembered how quick-witted she was. Before she answered any question—to me and on that deposition—she had worked out all of the landmines that she might stumble upon. I was reminded of her self-confidence and condescension, which, I heard from sources in her life, were lifelong traits. Debrah believed not only that she was smarter than everyone but told many that she could be president.

  The Debrah video piqued my curiosity again. What was she doing now? And was she still married to Robert?

  Debrah is married. Yes, she and Robert are still married, but they don’t talk. She begged him not to do The Jinx, and when he did it anyway, she stopped speaking to him. But she’s still selling property for him, including his Fifth Avenue apartment and a house in Bridgehampton, to the tune of twenty million dollars.

  Debrah is rich. Filthy rich. With millions of Durst’s money, she started BCB Property Management, Inc., with her formerly estranged son, Bennat. They are buying and selling property all over the city and the Hamptons and making millions in commissions.

  Debrah is in love. She lives with Steven I. Holm, a real-estate lawyer who has represented Robert in some deals. Their love nest is a luxurious Fifth Avenue apartment. Together, they run the Charatan/Holm Family Foundation, through which they donate tens of thousands of dollars to Jewish charities each year. (Side note: The foundation donates regularly to Albert Einstein Medical School.) We found a copy of the Park East Synagogue Chronicle from 2014 that mentioned “Mrs. Debrah Charatan Holm.”

  She’s using her live-in boyfriend’s name in temple. She never refers to herself as Mrs. Debrah Durst. That tells you all you need to know about whom she considers to be her true husband.

  Debrah may be in deep shit. There’s been some noise about arresting her for trying to help Robert in his failed attempt to go to Cuba. She could be charged with “aiding and abetting an attempted unlawful flight to avoid prosecution,” “conspiracy to commit unlawful flight to avoid prosecution,” “attempt to conceal a person from arrest,” and “conspiracy to conceal a person from arrest.” Each conviction could get her five years. I have no idea if she will be charged. But if she is, and she goes to prison, she will be running the place in no time. And, if she is, there is no need to cut a deal for her, since Durst has dug his own grave.

  • Why include that vintage clip of DA Morganelli and me in Pennsylvania? John Morganelli held a press conference in Pennsylvania before Durs
t was extradited back to Texas in 2001 and invited me to join him to talk to the swarm of reporters. I was wearing a very tailored Chanel cashmere jacket. I loved that jacket. I gave it to my daughter, Kiki, who is now a lawyer at Kirkland and Ellis in New York City. Morganelli asked me to join him to talk to the swarm of reporters. I said, “There’s no question. We’ll find out what happened to Kathleen sooner or later.” In my seat in the theater, I remembered thinking, Why show that clip in episode one? It was a nice bit of foreshadowing. By the time the series finale aired, we would know what happened to her.

  After the premiere, Andrew and Marc sat on the stage. They insisted that Cody sit with them, and the three of them took questions. Although there were other Durst players in the audience, only one person was brought onstage to sit with the filmmakers. It was clear that they had both respect and affection for Cody.

  For the next month, I watched new episodes every Sunday on HBO, mostly at home with Lance and Mickey. There were periodic outbursts from me. I yelled at the TV screen, jumping up and down on my sofa, and frantically texted comments as new facts and inconsistencies were revealed. Cody and I watched some chapters together, both looking and commenting at the same time. Seeing all the familiar faces was sort of like a family reunion. I got to judge them all, as in, “Oh, God. This one didn’t age too well,” or, “She looks good.” If I do say so myself, I didn’t look half bad.

  It was fascinating to see the attention The Jinx was getting. People young and old, from different walks of life, my kids, their friends, their bosses, my mom, Esther, eighty-three, were mesmerized by the case.

  The following few pages are like a viewing guide of The Jinx and how I reacted to key moments while watching the episodes. So cue up the series again and read along, as if we were binge-watching on the couch together.

  | EPISODE TWO: POOR LITTLE RICH BOY